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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26298868">Killing Boys</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/boltplum/pseuds/boltplum'>boltplum</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anal Sex, Billy Hargrove Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Blowjobs, Cuckolding, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Frottage, Jennifer's body au, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Period-Typical Homophobia, Possession, Protective Steve Harrington, Slightly - Freeform, basically the movie but a better ending, more to be added as it goes - Freeform, precarious post people eating sex, the movie but also not kind of, ummm what do I tag this with</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:08:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,076</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26298868</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/boltplum/pseuds/boltplum</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is kissing Tommy.</p><p>Billy stands at the mouth of the stairs, stunned and watching them. There’s like, tongue and shit. Billy hates it. He fucking hates it.</p><p>He wants to throw up.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>127</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Plot twist, I remade my AO3 account like the clown I am, honk honk. Enjoy this Jennifer's Body AU that I drew some fanart for and then couldn't stop thinking about.</p><p>Any mean comments=comments get turned off.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Billy gets a black eye Friday morning. He gets drunk Friday night.</p><p>Steve is the one who comes up to him, asking him what his bruised to hell face is for. Steve is the one poking at him and making his cheek smart and his eye probably swell up three sizes too big, and, “Fuckin' quit it will ya.” Billy bats his hand away.</p><p>Steve snorts and says, "No way, Jose. Wait...who's Jose?" And Billy realizes for once he's not the drunkest person at one of Hawkins High’s lame parties.</p><p>Steve giggles, gets his lips wet with beer, and loses himself in the crowd of bodies.</p><p>Billy gets drunker because his face hurts and Steve looks really fucking good tonight.</p><p>The prude dumps Harrington halfway through the night. Billy finds him crying to himself in the bathroom upstairs.</p><p>Billy bumps their legs together and hands him his red solo cup. It has vodka in it. He thinks.</p><p>Steve downs it in one.</p><p>"Nancy can be such a bitch," Steve mutters.</p><p>And just like that they're friends.</p><p>--</p><p>It’s different than before. Different than when Billy would hunt the grounds of the school for the guy with the big hair, itching to shove his nose in the dirt, make his mouth turn bloody.</p><p>Now, it’s him and Steve sharing a hit off Tommy’s bong in his basement while Carol sucks his dick sometimes, rides him others, and all for them to see. Like she’s putting on her own little rodeo. Billy tells her to ride Steve next time, and she winks, and she smiles, and she says:</p><p>“Been there.”</p><p>And Steve finishes through a cloud of smoke, “Done that.”</p><p>Tommy doesn’t finish that time. But Billy doesn’t fucking care.</p><p>--</p><p>Steve is too much of a soft heart to stay mad at the prude forever. He’s back to eating lunch with her and Byers within a month, and Billy doesn’t even mind much. He really doesn’t.</p><p>The part he does mind is that now, they go everywhere together. So he’s expected to follow with those big brown eyes staring back at him all wondering and glittery in the afternoon light, wondering why Billy isn’t going to sit with him and his.</p><p>So Billy starts eating lunch with Steve, Nancy and Byers. It’s fucking odd.</p><p>But Steve’s thigh presses alongside his and that’s real fucking nice. Nice enough to stick it out, and the next day too. And the next...and the next.</p><p>And the next.</p><p>--</p><p>There’s a party. It’s at Tina’s again. Tina’s a real go getter when it comes to being an up and coming socialite. That, and she always makes sure to have the good booze and plenty of coke. Enough to flour a sheet or ten of cookies with if she wanted.</p><p>He’s a little high.</p><p>Steve isn’t. Steve’s a stickler for no drugs, and Billy wants to tease, wants to tug and scratch and remind him about all the times they’ve smoked together by now.</p><p>He can hardly remember what it feels like to beat the guy’s face in.</p><p>But Billy’s high. So he thinks that’s why he sees Max, little dumbass, shit for brains, Max, at the other end of the lawn when Steve drags him outside for some air.</p><p>He takes a deep breath, feels a little clearer, sees Max, sees the guys in front of the van that’re talking her up, sees little Lucas beside her trying to pull her away and Billy sees fucking red.</p><p>Everything is a blur. He shoves Max to the grass, gets a load of the queer’s painted nails and slicked back black hair that was trying to get with his little sister and he fucking goes for it. Loses himself a little. Like that night he first met Steve. Really met him.</p><p>Steve’s a fucking bonfire. When he gets serious, everybody stops to stare in wonder.</p><p>To gaze upon in awe.</p><p>It’s what Billy only just manages to do because Steve’s got an iron grip around his waist and up he goes--off the ground just like that, and isn’t that fucking cool, how fucking strong Steve Harrington is all of a sudden when he really wants to be. Hauling around Billy goddamn Hargrove like he’s a sack of fucking potatoes.</p><p>Steve rolls his eyes like he said it out loud.</p><p>“We were just talking,” Queer Numero Uno says, very proud, and very arrogant, and Billy lunges for him a second time.</p><p>This time, Steve lets him.</p><p>--</p><p>Max gets grounded for a month when Billy tells Neil.</p><p>Max won’t talk to him for longer, but he doesn’t mind.</p><p>--</p><p>Steve is kissing Tommy.</p><p>Billy stands at the mouth of the stairs, stunned and watching them. There’s like, tongue and shit. Billy hates it. He fucking hates it.</p><p>He wants to throw up.</p><p>Steve catches up with him later. Says, “Sorry. Thought we had some privacy for a minute.”</p><p>And he laughs after he hangs his head a little, that stupid, dumb smile in place, and he’s so fucking good and Billy fucking hates him.</p><p>“I don’t got a problem with homos,” Billy informs him.</p><p>And that’s that.</p><p>--</p><p>Does Carol know, he thinks.</p><p>Does Carol care, he wonders.</p><p>Would Steve ever kiss him, he hopes.</p><p>He drives to the Harrington house. Gets invited inside by Steve’s dad. His dad, the supposed asshole. Nice guy by Billy’s standards. Cares about his kid’s success. Cares if his kid is getting into bad shit.</p><p>Nice guy, Harrington senior.</p><p>Steve doesn’t know what he has.</p><p>Billy eats dinner with Steve’s family. Steve plays them music in his room later. They look through old skin mags together, laughing at leather thongs. Steve likes small tits opposed to big ones. Billy’s the opposite. He sleeps on the floor of Steve’s room.</p><p>Stays up for hours listening to him snore, wanting every minute to tell him to shut the fuck up.</p><p>--</p><p>In the morning, way too early, Billy wakes up just before Steve quietly gets out of bed. He hems and haws to himself for a moment in the dark, before deciding to just step over Billy and go to what Billy assumes in the bathroom.</p><p>His pajama pants are tented. His hair is a wreck. There are moles on his lower back.</p><p>Billy sighs and goes back to sleep.</p><p>--</p><p>Another party. Another front lawn.</p><p>This time, it’s him rubbing Steve’s back over the spot he knows are a scattering of moles while he pukes up his guts the bottle of bourbon he downed not ten minutes ago.</p><p>“Told you it was too much too fast.”</p><p>“But,” Steve says between lurches, “You did it!”</p><p>“I can handle it.”</p><p>“You’re the worst.”</p><p>“Shut up and keep chucking, sweetheart.”</p><p>Steve does. Billy keeps rubbing his back.</p><p>“I’m perishing,” Steve moans when he’s finally done. Billy accepts the wiggling fingers for what they are and helps Steve to his feet.</p><p>“Perish the thought.”</p><p>Steve breathes on him. Billy makes a face. “You’re not funny,” Steve tells him.</p><p>“I am, you’re just too drunk to realize it.”</p><p>“You’re never funny.”</p><p>“Now that’s just mean.”</p><p>“Hey,” Steve says, squinting past Billy’s shoulders. “Isn’t that the van that tried to get Max?”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>Billy leans Steve up against the front of the house. He wanes, burping alcoholic swathes of breath that Billy steps away to avoid.</p><p>“It sure fuckin’ is.”</p><p>He glares. There’s a few new ones with the guy who’d chatted Max up. Short chick with combat boots and a jacket better suited to old pulp paperbacks. Another guy with a big mohawk. Out of towners.</p><p>Billy used to be an out of towner.</p><p>But now it’s Steve at his shoulder, a hand on his back, telling him, “Let’s go get em’.”</p><p>So they go.</p><p>And Billy finds out they’re a band. Kind of. Have problems nailing down a bassist.</p><p>“Does that matter?” Steve asks and Billy almost disowns him.</p><p>“Hey man, I’m really sorry about that misunderstanding with your sister last time. She was interested in the music, that’s all,” Queer Numero Uno is telling him and Billy, maybe because he’s less upped on coke than the time before, decides to let him dig his own grave for now. “We have a studio a little ways out of town. It’s real legitimate.”</p><p>“You sell kids?”</p><p>The short girl cackles.</p><p>“You run drugs?”</p><p>Mohawk digs out a cigarette from somewhere and lights it. Smiles crooked teeth.</p><p>“These guys creep me out,” Steve whispers against the shell of his ear. Billy shivers.</p><p>Something changes in the first guy’s face.</p><p>“Come on, let us show you two our place. We have drinks.”</p><p>“This place has drinks.”</p><p>He sniffs. “I’m talking real liquor, kid. The kind of shit no high schoolers could hope to get their hands on.”</p><p>Mohawk adds, “And we got fresh powder too, if you’re so inclined.”</p><p>The hand moves from his back to his neck, squeezing tight.</p><p>He turns and sees the hesitation in Steve’s big brown eyes. He knows Steve will follow him anywhere.</p><p>So Billy licks his lips and drags Steve into the van with him.</p><p>“Show us what the fuck you’re all about then, huh?”</p><p>And they do.</p><p>--</p><p>The studio isn’t much.</p><p>It’s a concrete room, peeling wallpaper, exposed brick and hanging pipe. It smells musty, like it’s been left wet for too long.</p><p>But there’s band equipment. Guitars and a drumset. A harp, which is confusing.</p><p>Steve seems to relax when Mohawk goes to beat a few notes out on his drums. Relaxes more when they’re coaxed to the cooler in the corner of the room beside the one sagging couch and handed beers. Fancy ones, from out of country. Billy’s never paid much attention to them.</p><p>Steve still turns his nose up. “My dad has better.”</p><p>Pulp girl eyes his hair, his pastel button up. “Sure he does.”</p><p>Then there’s coke. A lot of it. Then there’s more, and worse, and plenty.</p><p>--</p><p>“I don’t like this,” Steve tells him when they’re out at the quarry.</p><p>Billy tunes back in. His brain is an atomic blast just gone quiet.</p><p>Mohawk moves in and kisses him. Steve squeezes his arm. Pulls him away. Hugs him close. Says, “We gotta get out of here. I don’t like how they’re looking at you.”</p><p>Or maybe he’s just waiting to drop.</p><p>He can’t remember if he’s been kissed yet in front of Steve. He wants to kiss Steve now, right now. He doesn’t want to kiss anybody else, anybody other. Just Steve. Just him.</p><p>He grapples for his shirt collar.</p><p>“Come on, bud,” Steve murmurs. “Let’s leave.”</p><p>“Come on, Billy,” Nails calls and Billy is being pulled. His legs are jello. He can’t say no.</p><p>His shirt is missing. He’s shivering.</p><p>Someone is complaining. Maybe it’s Steve.</p><p>His pants are unzipped, his nipple is sucked. His cock is out and it’s cold, he’s shivering, and it’s so fucking cold, and the hard ground is cutting into his back.</p><p>Steve says, “No,” somewhere behind him, in front of him, all around him.</p><p>There’s a struggle, a fight, swearing, pain, fucking awful pain between his legs and then there’s more talking, singing, something weird and annoying and he fucking hurts, and that’s blood on his fingers when he draws them away and holds them in front of his face and Steve hasn’t said much in a while, and he’s afraid, for the first time in a long time, Billy’s fucking afraid.</p><p>Then he’s dragged.</p><p>He sees Steve being dragged beside him.</p><p>Numero Uno has blood on his dick and around his mouth and the hair he slicks back and he’s saying, “Just toss them both. Won’t matter.”</p><p>And Billy feels like it’s him who’s tossed when he sees Steve vanish over the edge of the cliff.</p><p>He’s gone. A match gone out. Just like that. Silent. No complaint.</p><p>It’s why he doesn’t mind so much when he’s next.</p><p>He falls. No complaint.</p><p>A bomb waiting to hit the deck.</p><p>It doesn’t take long.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Steve wakes up with his head pounding. One minute he was in freefall, the next, he's up and everything's spinning.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He climbs over the lump beside him and finds the waste basket. Throws up almost nothing. It smells like stale sewer water. His nostrils burn. His head feels like a water balloon.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The lump moves, groans, produces a hand that palms at his bare chest and--and where'd his shirt go--and pushes him on his back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Spinning. Gut churning. The hand rubs heavy circles over his stomach. He feels his dick twitch and doesn't mind it. He should.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"God, Billy," he says, rubbing tired hands over his face while Billy keeps up the circles. "I had the worst dream. You were--"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Billy's hand falls still. It drifts down to graze the hair under his belly button, and lower, and Steve sits up again. A throaty, slow to start laugh rises from the lump and Steve smacks what he guesses is Billy's head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Not funny."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Billy's head peeks out, hair all blond fuzz and his eyes too blue for just waking up. Steve blinks down at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Learn to take a joke."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He laughs again, and it's warm and fuzzy, like all the rest of him. Steve wants to touch his hair. Maybe braid it or something, and it's not a thought he's ever really had about his friend. Or anyone for that matter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Jesus, I need to piss," Billy mumbles on a yawn. He shrugs out from underneath the blankets and stands, stretching side to side, his arms high over his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He pulls at each elbow until his spine pops and he groans. Steve stares.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He's buck naked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Which would be weird, because it's not like Billy's naked much outside of the school showers (and maybe his own hookups, but Steve wasn't privy to those) and it's not like they share a bed. Ever.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But that's not the weird part.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's not even that Steve is naked for some reason too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's because when he walks away all Steve can see are the long, aggravated scratches down his back, the dried blood between his thighs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve feels like crying, so he does. Silently, and to himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He thought it was a dream. That awful night. That party and the van and the band and the quarry and the--the rest of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Billy's face as he was forced onto the ground, as his legs were spread and then--and then--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The fall.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A little gasp escapes him, and Billy quirks an eyebrow at the sound over his stack of pancakes. He's using way too much syrup.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They're at Benny's. Billy ordered half the menu. Steve is feasting on his two eggs and toast with a side of fruit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Billy's got eggs, bacon, pancakes, waffles, ham, sausage, greens, fruit, yogurt, coffee, orange juice, an inexplicable bucket of fried chicken legs Steve didn’t have before, and a tuna melt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he's eating it </span>
  <em>
    <span>all</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hey," Steve says quietly, poking his fork into the leaning tower of pancakes. "Um. Do you...did we?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Did we what, Harrington?" Billy asks, lifting his slit eyebrow. His lashes look darker than usual. He's pretty. Flushed in the cheeks and so...alive. Burning with an intensity Steve can’t quite look away from.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve sticks his tongue to the roof of his mouth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We didn't fuck if that's what you're wondering," Billy says, easy. Squirts more syrup on his tower before going to town.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Billy!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He laughs at Steve's expense and keeps eating.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I wasn't gonna ask </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>!" Steve insists. "I just--do you remember what we did last night, after the--the quarry."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Why?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"There’s like…" Black void after a struggle, pain, pain of the heart, tears squeezed down, kept locked in tight, sour throat, shocked still shouts, and blood, and falling, and-- "I just don't remember much after, well…you know. It doesn't matter, nevermind I'm being stupid."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Usually, I would agree with you."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"But?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You sound worried."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve leans in close, smells the sugar sweet maple. He sticks his fork into a section of fluff as Billy spins his plate to give him better access.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I guess it was just a bad dream," Steve murmurs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah," Billy says, and Steve can only see the blood on his thighs. "Guess so. I slept great. You probably just drank too much."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. Must be it.” But he doesn’t buy it. “It felt so real…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What did? The supposed dream-fucking we didn’t have?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Billy. We woke up naked. Together. And--no that’s not what I’m talking about.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then what </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span> you talking about?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Billy’s eyebrows wiggle as he gives Steve a lascivious look. “What if I told you we did get it on? Maybe after we got home bashed last night, I drunkenly went down on your huge cock and--”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Jesus Christ.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“--We topped the night off before bed with a quick little cowgirl action from yours truly, pretty boy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve just stares at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What the hell has gotten into you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve fidgets in his seat. He’s half hard from imagining it. He knows it didn’t happen. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows</span>
  </em>
  <span>. But what if...what if it </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span>?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It did not, he tells himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Billy’s staring at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stands up, pushing the chair out so that it falls with a loud clatter behind him. When he steps up to Steve, a little too close, thanks, he’s--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh, he’s hard.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he’s licking his lips.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He freezes. He can’t totally help it. Billy’s looking at him like he could eat him alive, and Steve </span>
  <em>
    <span>wants</span>
  </em>
  <span> that. He wants it so bad, so suddenly, he can’t even do anything when Billy inserts his knee between Steve’s and kicks his legs open to stand between them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ready for round two?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But--but there wasn’t even a round one?” Steve squeaks out, even as Billy reaches down and squeezes the line of Steve’s dick through his pants. “Oh my--Billy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Does that matter?” he asks. He squeezes again. Leans down and gets in Steve’s face. He’s so pretty. His lips are so full. His breath smells awful from all the different food, but his sweat and his own personal, cloying scent stick out underneath it all and Steve doesn’t think. He’s really good at not thinking when it counts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Billy sees the eagerness in his face. Accepts the kiss when Steve shoots forward, obliges by kissing back harder, fiercer, hungrier than Steve ever hoped Billy to be.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve spends long minutes with Billy in his lap, their hips shifting against one another, Billy’s tongue between Steve’s lips, Steve’s hands tracing over the hot skin of Billy’s shoulders as they move together. Then Billy is gone. Just gone. The weightlessness is cold and shocking, but not so much as the sight of Billy falling to his knees and fishing Steve out of his underwear.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He smirks, appraising the full, pink length he’s got wrapped in both fists, then he wraps those full lips around the head and hums. Steve shoots off in his mouth. Immediately.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve covers his face with his hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Billy keeps sucking him, though. Doesn’t seem to mind that Steve can’t hold himself in for shit. He groans and bucks up into the continued touch. It grows to be too much. Steve has to bite at a knuckle to keep from shouting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Billy only pulls off his dick once he’s come a second time. He swallows everything, eagerly licks up any he missed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve peeks through the hand still covering his eyes. Billy is smiling up at him, his cheek pressed to Steve’s thigh. His teeth are gleaming in the light. Almost look sharp.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve blinks and brings his hand away. Trick of the light. He huffs at himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So fucking hot, babe,” Billy murmurs and Steve flushes up to his ears.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then Billy is standing, not caring about the obvious wet stain blooming on the front of his jeans. He came from just sucking Steve off. Christ.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Billy ruffles Steve’s hair, pats his cheek a little too rough and turns to head for the front door.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll be back later. Got some shit to take care of.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But your pants...you--Billy what </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> that!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Billy’s already out the door.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve jerks awake that night. He’d been falling. Fell for so long, for so far, and landed so hard, it felt like the earth exploded beneath him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He pads downstairs, trying his best to make no noise. He doesn’t know who’s in his house this late, but Billy never came back and he’s worried it might be him, hurt, or fucked up, or who knows what else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It might not be him at all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A moment later Steve lets go of his held breath. It’s Billy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He gasps quietly when he gets close.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The front door is closed, and locked oddly enough. There’s mud tracked in thick for a few feet before it stops at Billy, passed out and naked except for the mud caked boots on his feet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s snoring.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve kneels, heart in his throat. Billy is covered in blood. And it isn’t a nightmare this time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He pokes and pushes and shoves until Billy’s on his back, dick free to the world, still snoring. The blood is everywhere...but none of it is his. He doesn’t seem hurt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve relaxes a little. As much as he can.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>While none of it is normal, and all of it is supremely fucking strange...the strangest thing is Billy’s face. Namely, his mouth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The lower half of his face is drenched in red. His neck too. Like he bit and tore out an animal’s throat. Or--or some</span>
  <em>
    <span>one’s</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve stares at Billy’s teeth. They’re sharp.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His hand shakes as he reaches out slowly, intending to test the image against his flesh. See if the sharpness is real. Prove to himself if he’s really lost it and he’s imagining things. Like naked Billy covered in blood with fucking, vampire demon monster teeth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before he can get close enough though, Billy coughs suddenly. Shoots up, coughs, eyebrows twisted up in confusion, or maybe pain and then he’s retching out black--black goop.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve doesn’t know what else to call it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s tons of it. It goes everywhere. Most unfortunately it covers Steve’s bare feet, and he grimaces as the sludgy slick feeling. He tries to rub at Billy’s back to get him through it. He doesn’t know what to do. He can’t exactly call an ambulance when Billy looks like he murdered somebody and buried their body.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Billy? Billy, are you like, dying right now?” Steve keeps rubbing his back, touching his overheated skin. That’s the other thing, he’s not even cold. Another wave of goo comes pouring out of him. “I’m going to get some, towels? Water? Hold on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Billy’s hand shoots out. His fingers clamp around Steve’s wrist and tug him back, tug him still. His eyes find Steve’s somewhere in the middle and Steve notices the iris is totally black. Black, and bigger than normal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve swallows his tongue.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Billy gives one last awful, gross retch. Then sits back on his haunches, frowning down at himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fucking...yuck. I need a bath. Hope you got extra towels, Harrington.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve just nods absently.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t look away from the two dismembered human fingers floating along in the muck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he finally looks back at Billy, Billy’s smiling like </span>
  <em>
    <span>oops</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What are you doing?” Billy asks, sending Steve exactly five feet in the air.</p><p>He quickly shuts the book he’d had open. Then realizes the red, fiery eyes of the monster on the front cover is even worse to hide the fact of what he’d been trying to research.</p><p>Steve flips the book over so the back is facing up.</p><p>Billy just watches him, a quirk to his mouth.</p><p>He’s got that perilous look in his bright--so bright, god--blue eyes. Not black and huge and overwhelming like they had been.</p><p>Steve takes in Billy’s clean exterior. His flawless cropped Everlast hoodie. His toned stomach. The abs that flex when he cocks a hip, thumb playing with the waistband of his sweatpants. He’s barefoot.</p><p>He swallows, hopes it doesn’t sound as loud as it does to his own ears.</p><p>But Billy still smirks, eyes lighting up. Like he <em> had </em> heard.</p><p>“Get on the bed, Harrington.”</p><p>“Billy.”</p><p>“Steve,” he counters, walking up to take Steve’s face in his hands. He squishes his cheeks. “Do you know how long I’ve been wanting you? Huh? Do you even have the first clue?”</p><p>Steve swallows again. Even though so many in Hawkins seem to think he’s stupid, he’s not.</p><p>“M-maybe.”</p><p>Billy shakes his head, no. Hums lightly. He pulls up until Steve is standing in front of him. Is looking up through the inch or so of height Steve has on Billy, and leans in for a sweet kiss. Sweeter than Steve ever expected from someone like Billy Hargrove.</p><p>“You got no clue,” he whispers into Steve’s mouth. “Get on the bed, Steve.”</p><p>Steve obeys.</p><p>Billy undresses Steve like he’s some girl about to have her first time. He’s not some blushing virgin. He’s got Carol off with Tommy watching--with <em> Billy </em> watching, the one time he insisted through a haze of weed to fuck her into the next dimension. Tommy had just cackled.</p><p>But Steve had done it. Had made Carol come so hard riding him, he had to look over and see what Billy’s reaction was.</p><p>Billy had been red-faced. Mouth slightly open and panting as he palmed himself. He was too casual about the touch, and Steve knew he was hiding how turned on he’d gotten. Because of Steve.</p><p>And Billy had only been watching <em> him </em>.</p><p>“You don’t have to go so slow, man,” Steve whines. He’s half hard already. It’s embarrassing. Billy’s still dressed. “Take your shit off too.”</p><p>“Nobody ever taught the Harrington heir patience?” But he obliges anyway. Yanks his sweats down and gets the crop over his head in a heartbeat. Is a warm line all above Steve’s body like a live electric wire.</p><p>Billy wraps their cocks in his fist and strokes them slow, so painstakingly slow. Steve is bucking, trying to make him speed the hell up.</p><p>But Billy just languishes in the sounds he’s making. It’s not fair. Why isn’t Billy falling apart and making a mess of himself like Steve is? It doesn’t feel like anything Steve’s ever experienced before, and maybe that’s a big red flag.</p><p>He pulls Billy down for more kisses. He gets them.</p><p>Steve gets Billy moaning by sucking on his tongue. He takes the moment to flip them over.</p><p>He smiles and kisses down Billy’s tan chest to his navel, then lower. He’s never done this before.</p><p>He’s thought about it.</p><p>But now he has to do it.</p><p>Billy’s wiggling his hips. He’s soft-voiced and pretty and pleading. “Come on, Steve. Know you’ll do it so good. Gonna break me right open.”</p><p>His heart flutters. He sucks Billy down to the hair at his groin because nobody ever said he did things half way.</p><p>Steve cups his balls gently, trying his best to flutter his throat on a hum, and it has Billy spilling down his throat. Almost as quick as Steve first had.</p><p>He pulls off with a wet, slightly sticky pop, and says, “A ha!”</p><p>Billy stares at him a moment, breathing hard, then laughs.</p><p>Very proud of himself, Steve climbs up to rest along Billy’s front. He’s warm and everywhere and hugs Steve so tight to his chest he thinks he might never leave.</p><p>“You’re mine, Steve,” Billy murmurs as he bites light on Steve’s lower lip. He brushes their noses together. “All mine.”</p><p>--</p><p>Billy disappears during the day for the most part.</p><p>He usually rocks Steve’s world with some new, vastly informative orgasm, and then takes off to do god knows what.</p><p>Then he comes back, sometimes early, almost always late.</p><p>Naked. Covered in varying amounts of blood. Boots on about half the time.</p><p>And always, Steve finds him and discovers not a scratch on him.</p><p>He thinks he might be dating an amnesiac serial murderer who doesn’t realize how good he is at his new hobby.</p><p>But Hawkins news hasn’t reported any missing people. No bodies found mangled in the woods, or the local general store--because of that one time Billy came back with blood all over his hands, with a new pack of branded gum only Joyce Byers sells.</p><p>Neither of them draw any attention to it.</p><p>But it keeps happening.</p><p>Once, Steve actually walks the woods behind his house, expecting to find a mound of dead animals. He had hoped to find them, actually. Because if Billy isn’t killing animals, and he isn’t killing humans, then…</p><p>What the hell is he killing?</p><p>--</p><p>They’re at a party. It’s a Saturday night.</p><p>Steve isn’t drinking. He’s ignoring anything that isn’t water in the bottle he brought. Billy calls him a square for it and is drunk off his ass no less than thirty minutes in.</p><p>He’s convinced whatever happened that night of that <em> other </em> party, the night at the quarry, wasn’t something he dreamed up. It happened. It had to have happened, because Billy’s been different ever since.</p><p>The books he’s been secretly checking out from the library--using Dustin’s card, thank you very much--all point to some hellish demonic soulless creature of the night. Billy doesn’t seem to be anymore soulless than any other day, so he’s at a loss, really.</p><p>Steve thinks he should be more bothered about the potential reality of Billy becoming a serial killer in his free time, and that Steve is <em> dating </em> that maybe part-time serial killer, but he...he just can’t. He really likes Billy.</p><p>Like, more than he should. Obviously.</p><p>Especially because he can only sigh when Billy leans in and says in his ear, “Hey, you have a cuck kink, baby?”</p><p>Steve leans in and replies, deadpan. “You came down my throat this morning. You’re actually wondering if I don’t have a thing for cock?”</p><p>Billy’s eyes glitter. “Keep up, sweetheart. I’m talking cuck. Cuckolding.” He makes little devil horns with one hand and holds it up to his forehead. “Like the Shakespeare shindig, man.”</p><p>Steve just blinks.</p><p>“I’m asking,” Billy says, rolling his eyes and turning breathy, “If you get turned on thinking about me fucking some other guy.”</p><p>Steve almost instantly recoils, frowning.</p><p>Billy senses his displeasure. “Nothing serious, babe. I’m talking, you know. Some fun. The jealousy gets you hot under the collar. Makes you need to stake your claim on little old me. I wandered a little too far from the nest, forgot who my daddy was…”</p><p>Steve swallows. Heat floods his face.</p><p>Billy is always so <em> much </em>.</p><p>Billy jerks his chin out toward the crowd. “But I only wander because I know how good I have it coming to me when I eventually wander back. You gonna show me how good I have it, Steve? You gonna stake your claim in me?”</p><p>Steve eyes him sidelong. “<em> In </em> you, huh?”</p><p>Eyes positively twinkling, Billy licks his lips. He’s getting turned on just talking about it. Steve knows him. Knows him better than ever now.</p><p>Well, almost.</p><p>The serial-murderer-maybe-animal-mauler-hopefully-red-paint-and-halloween-props-enthusiast thing besides, and everything.</p><p>Steve nods, still a little too tense. “Okay. Go cock or cuck or whatever.”</p><p>“I won’t unless you’re sure,” Billy says, suddenly serious. “I mean it, it’s just a game to get the blood pumping.”</p><p>A game. He can play games.</p><p>Steve nods.</p><p>“Alright.” He leans in. Breathes hot and meaningful down Billy’s neck. “Go wander. Just know when I find you after, I’ll show exactly who owns who.”</p><p>When he pulls back, skin tingling, Billy’s looking at him like he’s surprised. Proud maybe. Excited.</p><p>“God, Harrington. Keep talking like that I might just have to ride you right here where everyone can see.”</p><p>And then he’s off. Making a beeline to Steve doesn’t know where.</p><p>He drinks the rest of his water.</p><p>The crowd ebbs and flows and soon enough he sees who Billy went to.</p><p>It’s Mohawk. The guy from the first party.</p><p>Steve’s stomach sinks straight to the floor.</p><p>Billy’s talking him up, though. Making flirty eyes like he does at Steve. Like he doesn’t know who Mohawk is or what he--what he <em> did </em>. Doesn’t remember waking up the next day with his legs like--</p><p>Steve breathes through his nose.</p><p>And Mohawk doesn’t seem to recognize Billy either. He’s smiling. More leering than anything, but he’s talking Billy up right back and they’re leaning in and leaning away and making heavy eyes at each other and--</p><p>And then Steve loses them. Loses them for too long.</p><p>His heart is racing. He can’t find them. What the hell is going on?</p><p>Then he sees them going up the stairs together. Heading into the dark.</p><p>Steve crushes the water bottle and drops it. And then he follows after them.</p><p>--</p><p>Upstairs there’s only a few rooms to choose from. The master has the door closed with a hastily written paper taped to the front that says, <em> Parents room off limits </em>. He tries the knob and it’s locked.</p><p>The bathroom is open and empty. The two bedrooms are occupied.</p><p>He opens one and sees a couple he recognizes from school making out with each other. They don’t notice him and he quietly shuts the door again.</p><p>The last door he gets his hands on. He just breathes for a long while. Prepares himself for something more than just a game to be interrupted. This is bad. This is really bad.</p><p>But what if it was just some crazy dream?</p><p>Steve can’t take the chance. Not if Billy is in danger.</p><p>He opens the door wide. Shuts it just as quickly.</p><p>In the dark, his eyes adjust to the scene he hopes he didn’t just see.</p><p>He saw right.</p><p>It’s Billy, face nuzzled up to the neck of Mohawk as he grips at Billy’s shoulders, hips undulating underneath the bulk of him. Steve knows that bulk intimately.</p><p>But it’s not quite right.</p><p>Mohawk’s eyes are wide, huge and panicked. He’s clutching and clawing at Billy’s shoulders and back like he wants him off. His hips aren’t moving to seek pressure, they’re trying to hitch him off. His legs start kicking.</p><p>Billy doesn’t budge.</p><p>There’s a crunch. It’s too loud to be anything than what Steve’s churning gut tells him it is.</p><p>Then there’s blood. It soaks the pillow under Mohawk’s head. Gets in his hair. Paints a circle underneath them that spreads and spreads and spreads and--</p><p>And Billy sits up, tosses his neck to get his hair out of his eyes. He licks his lips and his teeth are sharp as he smiles around the blood staining his mouth and chin.</p><p>He sees Steve and winks. Wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. Like that will help. It doesn’t.</p><p>“Hey, cupcake.” Billy turns back and grabs the face of the guy he just killed. The guy he just latched his teeth into and bit so hard the bone snapped.</p><p>He pulls at the guy’s lips, his cheek. It slaps back into place with a wet, muted sound. He slaps the guy’s cheek hard and huffs.</p><p>“Billy...Billy you just--Billy, he’s dead. You just killed him. You’re--you’re a killer. You--you can’t--what--Fuck! You just killed the guy!”</p><p>Billy shrugs and climbs to his feet. Smooths his hands down the front of his nice button up and retucks the material back in his jeans where it slipped out during the struggle.</p><p>“He had it coming ever since the quarry. What? You don’t think he deserved it?”</p><p>The quarry. The <em> quarry </em>.</p><p>“But that--that was just a nightmare.”</p><p>Billy walks up to him. Touches bloody fingers to Steve’s jaw. It’s so gentle, such a contrast to the way he pulled at Mohawk’s face.</p><p>“Wasn’t <em> just </em> anything.” Billy licks his lips again. Brings his hand back down to suck the gore from his fingers. “What did you think I’ve been doing all this time?”</p><p>Steve is at a total loss. He can’t stop looking at the way Billy seems to love the taste of blood. Or the dead body just lounging so casually behind them, like he fell asleep and happened to have his neck spontaneously implode.</p><p>“I don’t know. I was hoping you joined some nudist colony that happened to have a thing for paint.”</p><p>Billy chokes, pulls his fingers free from his mouth. Then he laughs, like he can’t believe it.</p><p>Then he’s on his knees and has Steve’s dick out of his pants and down his throat in a matter of seconds.</p><p>Steve buries his hands in Billy’s hair.</p><p>The guy on the bed is dead.</p><p>Billy pulls off when Steve is so stiff it hurts.</p><p>Then he pulls and maneuvers them until he’s got his legs around Steve’s hips on the floor. Until he’s got his jeans pulled down just enough to rub the head of Steve’s dick against him. And he’s hot and he’s slick, for some reason beyond Steve’s comprehension--because the guy on the bed is dead.</p><p>But then Billy lowers himself, takes Steve so, so well. And he’s breathing hot and open mouthed and coppery and Steve can’t stop looking at him, now. At his swarmed-black eyes. His sharp, so sharp teeth that hadn’t cut him even a little bit. At how Billy rolls his hips and how his dick jumps against Steve’s stomach, wet beading so thick at the tip.</p><p>He pulls Billy off, and only comes when Billy clenches around him in response.</p><p>They stay like that for a while.</p><p>And Steve wonders what the hell is wrong with him.</p><p>--</p><p>“So,” Steve says that morning over breakfast as he drops the heavy book on latin demons in front of Billy’s face. “I think the quarry is evil. Or haunted or something.”</p><p>Billy eyes the book. Keeps eating his cereal.</p><p>“Why do you say that?”</p><p>“Because you’ve been killing people, Billy.”</p><p>“Wrong. I’ve been killing <em> boys, </em>” Billy says, matter of fact and straight faced. “It’s different.”</p><p>“I’m a boy. Or--I’m a man.”</p><p>Billy snorts. Starts flipping through the book. “You’re okay.”</p><p>It has Steve pausing. He sits down beside Billy. Because he maybe kind of loves him and he hasn’t said it yet, probably won’t, given the cannibal murdered schtick and all. But he <em> wants </em> to, and keeps wanting to, even though sometimes all he can see is a dead guy on a bed. And that makes him just as fucked up as Billy.</p><p>He sighs.</p><p>“So you’re not gonna kill me?”</p><p>Billy rolls his eyes.</p><p>“I’m fucking you, aren’t I?”</p><p>“That makes it different?”</p><p>“What? You want me to confess my undying loyalty to your cock or something?”</p><p>Steve tears at his hair. “Stop. Just stop. You’ve always been so fucking gross, but you’ve really reached a new level since whatever happened at the quarry. Maybe there’s some demon whale that ate you and spit you back out.”</p><p>“Nope.”</p><p>“Nope?”</p><p>Billy shakes his head. “You passed out. I remember everything. They wanted to kill me because they thought I was a virgin, or some shit. They were going to take Max. But they took me. And then they tried to take you.”</p><p>He keeps eating his cereal and Steve can only watch him.</p><p>“Once you die and then aren’t dead, it kind of gives you the confidence to do all the shit you always wanted to do but never did because you were too chickenshit. Like kiss the boy I had a crush on. Ringing any bells?”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“They went after you after they did what they did to me. So I killed them. It’s different, Harrington.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“Oh, is all he can say.” Billy huffs again. “Listen. I’m not some creepy demon from the deep or whatever this shit says. I didn’t suddenly become Dante’s wet dream, okay?”</p><p>Steve reaches out and pulls at Billy’s face. He runs his fingers over the blunt edges of Billy’s teeth. Billy nips at them in a tease.</p><p>“I don’t get it.”</p><p>Billy shrugs. “Neither do I. But it works, so I’m not complaining.”</p><p>“So there’s...no evil whale in the quarry?”</p><p>“Drop it, Steve.”</p><p>“But, Billy. You--”</p><p>“Drop it,” Billy says, and it rattles Steve to the core.</p><p>He drops it. But he doesn’t forget it.</p><p>Something isn’t right.</p><p>--</p><p>He keeps reading up on the topic in secret. He loses himself in Billy every morning and night and doesn’t ask what Billy spends his free time doing. But he stops coming back to Steve’s house naked and covered in blood, so he counts it as a win.</p><p>But it’s still bugging him.</p><p>Billy eats like he’s eating for ten.</p><p>And nothing Steve reads is telling him that demons get pregnant ten times over, and Billy’s stomach is looking as flat and ripped as ever, so that’s not it. Thankfully.</p><p>The books say to get silver. And garlic, which he feels stupid about. He stocks up and leaves it on the counter and Billy ends up cooking a delicious meal with half of it. So that’s out too.</p><p>He buys Billy a silver earring. He wears it. Every single day.</p><p>Billy still checks himself out in any reflective surface he can, mirror or not. He doesn’t hiss and sizzle at the holy water Steve got from the church down on Main Street, playing it off as new cologne he bought. Billy says he got ripped off because it doesn’t smell like anything. He doesn’t scream or shrivel at the sight of Steve’s grandmother’s wooden cross when he asks Billy to help him clean out the garage.</p><p>He rubs eggs on the doorways and feels dumber than ever. He spills salt in lines that Billy is always having to sweep up with a grumble.</p><p>Steve even goes so far as to learn the sign of the cross and a latin prayer he uses one night in bed, their stomachs sticky and energy spent, joking that he has to exorcise the demon out of Billy just to get some sleep. Little does Billy know Steve actually said the words right and everything.</p><p>It doesn’t do shit. Billy just laughs and pulls him back under the covers.</p><p>Steve’s starting to go nuts.</p><p>--</p><p>He’s looking up psychics in the yellowpages when Dustin finds him at the library.</p><p>“Uh, Steve. What are you doing?”</p><p>Steve tangles a hand in his hair, exhausted with reading number after number.</p><p>“How do you get rid of a demon in your best friend?”</p><p>Dustin casts a look down at himself. “I’m not possessed, though?”</p><p>“My other best friend, then.”</p><p>“Oh.” Dustin sits down across from him. “Tommy’s kind of an asshole but I don’t think he’s possessed, man.”</p><p>Steve smacks his head on the table. “I’m so tired, kid. This shit is running me around the bend.”</p><p>“Hey, hey, hey. This is good news, Steve! Now you have me to help.”</p><p>Steve is grateful, even if he has to listen to Dustin prattle on about fantasy creatures over a hundred different books for half the day.</p><p>It’s only when the library is getting close to closing that Carol walks in with Tommy. They join Dustin and Steve at the table.</p><p>“Ew, what’s with the dweeb,” Tommy says, flicking Dustin’s cap off his head.</p><p>Dustin rolls his eyes and tugs his hat back on. “None of your business.”</p><p>Carol sucks at the lollipop she has in her mouth, glancing over the open books strewn across the table. “Very spooky. What is this? Halloween isn’t for months.”</p><p>Dustin is peering at Tommy. Tommy starts looking uncomfortable.</p><p>“Rein your child in, Steve. He’s wigging me out.”</p><p>Steve waves at them. “Cut it out, guys. We’re just looking up some stuff.”</p><p>“Have you had a sudden craving for guts?” Dustin asks Tommy, who just stares blankly at him.</p><p>“Steve.”</p><p>“What, Tommy?”</p><p>“Your kid’s fucking weird.”</p><p>“Not my kid.”</p><p>“His best friend!”</p><p>“I thought that was me,” Tommy says, putting on a sad tone to match the pout he wears. Steve doesn’t think he’s joking.</p><p>Carol makes a happy, surprised sound and then Billy is sliding in next to Steve, appearing from seemingly nowhere.</p><p>He ruffles Steve’s hair.</p><p>His eyes are dark.</p><p>Steve doesn’t even bother hiding the books. It’s too late for that.</p><p>“Perfect,” Carol says, pointing at Billy with her lollipop. “We were wondering if Steve and you could come out to play tonight.”</p><p>“Play?”</p><p>“You know,” Tommy says, winking at Steve. His foot kicks lightly at his beneath the table. “Smoke, hang out. The usual.”</p><p>“With some spice,” Carol adds.</p><p>“Spice, huh,” Billy mutters, smiling over the strange tone in his voice. Steve doesn’t miss it. “Oh, we’ll be there.”</p><p>And he’s not looking away from Tommy, and how Tommy is looking at Steve.</p><p>Uh oh.</p><p>--</p><p>“You can’t eat him, Billy.”</p><p>“I’m not going to eat Tommy. That’s all kinds of yuck.”</p><p>“Says the guy who coughed up a couple of fingers.”</p><p>“Hey, I’m a changed man.”</p><p>Steve just stares at him. “No eating.”</p><p>“That rule you out for later, peach cobbler?”</p><p>“That doesn’t even make sense.”</p><p>“The term of endearment or the innuendo?”</p><p>“The--the peach cobbler part. Seriously, Billy. No eating people. Boys. I’m a man, remember, I don’t count. What? Stop laughing. No consuming. No blood or killing or whatever.”</p><p>Billy makes the sign of the cross, and Steve wonders if somehow Billy knows he’s been looking into whatever <em> he </em> is.</p><p>But right now he’s just Billy. Billy and his goofy, horny self.</p><p>“Promise,” he says, even though he doesn’t sound like he means it.</p><p>He grabs his crotch and sticks his tongue out, only proving Steve’s point.</p><p>--</p><p>In Tommy’s basement, it feels the same as it ever has.</p><p>The reek of pot, the heady laziness, the table full of snacks, a movie in the VHS player. It’s been a good night.</p><p>But buzzing underneath it all is Billy. Billy, sitting plastered next to Steve like he spilled a bottle of glue when Steve wasn’t looking.</p><p>“What is your deal?” Steve asks, keeping his voice low.</p><p>“Nothing, cupcake.”</p><p>“Billy.”</p><p>“Hush. I’m fine. Everything’s normal.”</p><p>Billy’s got his pocket knife out, flipped open and stabbed through the end of an apple. He’s been munching on it for a while.</p><p>“I’m gonna go get more smokes,” Carol announces. She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Coming, babe?”</p><p>Tommy starts to rise, but Billy shoots up, moving smooth to fall on Tommy’s knee, practically in his lap. He keeps munching on the apple. He waves the knife and the slice at Carol.</p><p>“Buddy boy here’s a little too smoked out to drive anywhere, Carol. We’ll keep an eye on him.”</p><p>Carol frowns. Reaches out to tap the end of Billy’s nose with a manicured finger.</p><p>“Don’t start the fun without me,” she says, already heading for the stairs to the first floor. She gets to only after Billy blows her a kiss.</p><p>Once the door is closed, Billy turns to Tommy.</p><p>And then he’s kissing him.</p><p>Billy sucks on Tommy’s tongue like Steve sucks on Billy. It always does the trick. Always gets Billy hard and ready to go. But Tommy’s hands just spasm, surprised by the sudden touch.</p><p>None of them have done this. Not out in the open. It’s always been Carol between them. It’s always been Billy watching. It’s only been Tommy and Steve stealing a moment to kiss and clutch, and never anything too far.</p><p>But that was all before. Before Billy. And the blood. And...them.</p><p>Steve’s stomach flips as he watches Billy work Tommy into a blushing mess. His eyes are glazed as Billy starts rutting his ass back, meeting the growing bulge in Tommy’s lap beneath him. Tommy gasps, open mouthed and hungry.</p><p>He has no idea that Billy and Steve have a thing. That they <em> are </em> a thing.</p><p>But are they?</p><p>Steve isn’t sure and it rankles him. When did he become so needy?</p><p>Maybe he’s always been that way and Billy just really brings it out of him. Maybe because Billy is so clever about feeding that in Steve.</p><p>And nobody but Steve knows what Billy’s likely doing.</p><p>His teeth gleam and Steve just watches. He’s helpless. He’s hard.</p><p>Billy doesn’t miss that detail. He smirks and keeps grinding Tommy through the layers of their clothing. Keeps going, harder and harder until Tommy seizes up, eyes shut tight as he comes right there in his seat. Carol’s been gone maybe three minutes.</p><p>“Holy shit,” Tommy breathes.</p><p>“Can I?” Billy asks Steve, and Tommy nods, not understanding what he’s actually asking because his hips keep moving. “Can I, please? I’m so hungry, baby,” he says, begging, and Steve can’t do anything. He’s pathetic. He’s miserable.</p><p>He nods and Billy grins, thankful.</p><p>Then Steve realizes exactly what he’s agreed to, and he’s out of his seat in a second.</p><p>It only takes that long for Steve to get his hands on Billy’s knife.</p><p>Only takes so long for Billy to sink his sharp teeth in Tommy’s neck.</p><p>Steve blinks.</p><p>Billy unlatches from Tommy’s skin, the puncture marks pulsing out fresh blood with every beat of his heart.</p><p>Billy falls back, onto his ass on the floor. The apple slice is on the floor at their feet. The hilt of the knife sticks out of his chest.</p><p>Billy looks at the knife. Then he looks up at Steve, almost confused.</p><p>“My tit.”</p><p>Steve snorts, hysterical. Crushed. A little more than desperate.</p><p>“You--you stabbed me.” Billy looks at the hilt again. He stands up. He just--<em> stands </em>. Like he doesn’t have a knife in his heart. “You fucking stabbed me, Steve.”</p><p>“I--yeah. Yeah, I did.”</p><p>“You said it was okay.” Billy is looking at him again. And his eyes are blue. He rips his shirt open, exposing the would, his chest, his abs. The tendrils of black blood that seep from the knife still stuck there. “You said I could. I was so hungry. I was <em> so </em> hungry for it.”</p><p>“You can’t do this anymore. I can’t watch you do it anymore.”</p><p>“But--”</p><p>“I was only gonna do it a little,” Billy says, grunting as he wraps his fingers around the hilt. “Tommy wasn’t gonna remember a thing in the morning. I can do that. I don’t have to kill them.”</p><p>“But you always do.”</p><p>Billy grunts more loudly as he pulls out the blade. Black blood flings out with it as he tosses it to the floor.</p><p>His knees shake, collapse as he barrel into Steve. He grips at Steve’s shoulders as Steve tries to hold him up.They both end up on their knees.</p><p>“Harrington, babe--<em> Steve </em>.”</p><p>“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I had to. Had to do it. You weren’t ever gonna stop.”</p><p>“You don’t trust me?” And how is it possible to feel like Steve betrayed Billy when it’s Billy eating a mutual friend?</p><p>“I--I love you,” Steve says, because he’s miserable, and more than a little desperate, and a whole lot fucked up. “That’s why.”</p><p>Billy narrows his blue, blue eyes. The darkness seeped out of them a while ago.</p><p>“You bitch.”</p><p>Steve laughs. He laughs and his eyes leak out tears and he realizes he’s just killed Billy.</p><p>Billy’s hand finds his neck.</p><p>He pulls Steve close, smashes their mouths together.</p><p>With Billy’s dying breath, a sharp tooth knicks Steve’s tongue.</p><p>Billy’s blood tastes like salt.</p><p>--</p><p>Billy wakes up in the hospital.</p><p>Steve’s blood pulses when he does. He feels a little hungry and he doesn’t look too closely at it.</p><p>Billy eyes him, wary. Probably very confused.</p><p>He looks down at his bandaged chest and huffs, laying back on the starchy hospital pillows.</p><p>“I feel weird. Emptier.”</p><p>“You uh. You died, I think? Then you didn’t? There was a lot of black coming out of you, then there wasn’t anything. Well, there <em> was </em> something. But it was normal. Like, normal red blood. Not the black stuff. I’m rambling. I know I’m rambling. God.” He takes breath. “Tommy doesn’t remember anything. Official story is, you and him smoked too much and the knife got involved between some friendly wrestling. Carol screamed her head off when she came back in.”</p><p>Billy nods. Closes his eyes. “Stop yapping, pretty boy. My head fucking hurts.”</p><p>Steve smiles. “You uh, do you remember anything?”</p><p>Billy cracks an eye open. “I don’t know. I recall a pretty face spilling their guts out about how much they love and cherish me, right after they stabbed me. I was still bleeding out. Very fucking Romeo Montague of you.”</p><p>He feels warm. It wasn’t for nothing, then. “Then that makes you Juliet.”</p><p>“I know I’m a pretty bitch, Harrington, no need to remind me.” Then, “Come here.”</p><p>Steve does. His stomach rumbles the closer he gets. The more he can smell Billy’s rich scent under all the hospital smells.</p><p>Billy’s looking up into his eyes, brow wrinkled.</p><p>“This blows. I die and come back <em> again </em> and all I get to be is some normal dude, while you...,” he states, reaching up to stroke Steve’s cheek. He doesn’t look away from Steve’s eyes. “When we kissed. Right before I--you got it, didn’t you?”</p><p>“It’s not mono, Billy.”</p><p>“You know what I mean.”</p><p>“I don’t know. But I haven’t eaten anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.”</p><p>Billy snorts. “Brag about it.”</p><p>Steve blinks and a tear slides out. Billy wipes it away. Steve presses their foreheads together, kisses Billy’s knuckles.</p><p>“Glad you’re not dead.”</p><p>“Me too, pretty boy,” Billy says, kissing the corner of his mouth, then his cheek. “You sure you’re not feeling up to eating anyone?”</p><p>Steve draws back. “No. I swear, Billy. It’s a little different. Everything’s a little more intense. Like I can smell you, and you smell <em> so </em> good. Like, wow, really good. And your heart sounds--”</p><p>“So you’re not hungry, then.”</p><p>“I--no?”</p><p>Then Billy smirks. Grabs his junk through the thin hospital blanket.</p><p>“I think you’re hungry for <em> me</em>, babe. And I got just what you need.”</p><p>Steve, unimpressed, pokes Billy on the chest. Just enough for him to feel it.</p><p>“Ow.”</p><p>“Give it a few weeks,” Steve tells him.</p><p>“And then?”</p><p>“Then maybe I’ll show you just how hungry you’ve made me.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>my tit</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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